Religious Minority Rights
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Christopher Buck, Religious Minority Rights, bahai-library.com.
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THE ISLAMIC WORLD

Andrew Rippin
First published 2008 by Routledge
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ISBN10: 0–415–36407–8 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–36646–5 (hbk)
CONTENTS

List of illustrations                 x
List of contributors                xiii

Introduction                          1
ANDREW RIPPIN

PART I
The geo-political Islamic world          9

1 The Arab Middle East                 11
MARTIN BUNTON

2 West Africa                          24
DAVID OWUSU-ANSAH

3 East Africa                          39
VALERIE J. HOFFMAN

4 Turkey                               53
MARKUS DRESSLER

5 Iran                                 70
ELTON L. DANIEL

6 Central Asia                         85
DEVIN DeWEESE

7 Southeast Asia                      103
NELLY VAN DOORN-HARDER

v
––– C O N T E N T S –––

8 Europe                                                118
JOHN R. BOWEN

9 The diaspora in the West                              131
AMIR HUSSAIN

PART II
The religious Islamic world                              143

10 The Qur ! ān                                         145
GORDON NICKEL AND ANDREW RIPPIN

11 Muh.ammad                                             157
MICHAEL LECKER

12 Sunnı̄ law                                            167
ROBERT GLEAVE

13 Theology: freewill and predestination                 179
SULEIMAN ALI MOURAD

14 Ritual life                                           191
ZAYN KASSAM

15 Sufism                                                212
ART BUEHLER

16 Shi " ism                                             224
WILLIAM SHEPARD

17 The Ibād.ı̄s                                         235
VALERIE J. HOFFMANN

18 Relations with other religions                        246
DAVID THOMAS

vi
––– C O N T E N T S –––

PART III
The intellectual Islamic world                            259

19 The Arabic language                                    261
MUSTAFA SHAH

20 Philosophy                                             278
OLIVER LEAMAN

21 The scientific tradition                               289
GEORGE SALIBA

22 Education                                              305
JEFFREY C. BURKE

23 The transmission of knowledge                          318
PAUL L. HECK

24 Travel                                                 331
DAVID WAINES

BIOGRAPHIES
25 " Abd al-Jabbār                                       344
GABRIEL SAID REYNOLDS

26 Niz.ām al-Mulk                                        351
NEGUIN YAVARI

27 Al-Ghazālı̄                                           359
FRANK GRIFFEL

28 Ibn " Arabı̄                                           366
SAJJAD H. RIZVI

29 Ibn Taymiyya                                           374
DAVID WAINES

30 Nās.ir al-Dı̄n al-T
. ūsı̄                             380
ZAYN KASSAM

vii
––– C O N T E N T S –––

31 Al-Suyūt.ı̄                                          384
SULEIMAN ALI MOURAD

32 Shāh Walı̄ Allāh                                    390
MARCIA K. HERMANSEN

33 Bediüzzaman Said Nursi                                396
ZEKI SARITOPRAK

34 Sayyid Qut.b                                          403
WILLIAM SHEPARD

35 Fazlur Rahman                                         409
EARLE H. WAUGH

PART IV
The cultural Islamic world                               419

36 Art                                                   421
HUSSEIN KESHANI

37 Architecture                                          444
HUSSEIN KESHANI

38 Material culture                                      473
JAMES E. LINDSAY

39 Military organization and warfare                     487
NIALL CHRISTIE

40 Popular piety and cultural practices                  499
EARLE H. WAUGH

41 Music                                                 510
MICHAEL FRISHKOPF

42 Cinema                                                527
GÖNÜL DÖNMEZ-COLIN

viii
––– C O N T E N T S –––

PART V
Social issues and the Islamic world                          549

43 Civilization                                              551
AKBAR AHMED

44 Social change                                             565
EBRAHIM MOOSA

45 Secularism                                                576
AMILA BUTUROVIC

46 Public ethics                                             591
AMYN B. SAJOO

47 Marriage, family, and sexual ethics                       611
KECIA ALI

48 Women, gender and human rights                            624
SIMONETTA CALDERINI

49 Religious minority rights                                 638
CHRISTOPHER BUCK

Glossary                                                 656
General index                                            661
Index of Qur ! ān citations                             677

ix
CONTRIBUTORS

Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies and Professor of Inter-
national Relations, The American University, Washington DC. He has held senior
administrative positions in Pakistan, and was the Pakistan High Commissioner
(Ambassador) to the UK, and is author of Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Global-
ization (Brookings Press, 2007). He is the author of many other books and articles,
and a frequent commentator on Islamic affairs in the media.
Kecia Ali is Assistant Professor of Religion at Boston University. Her primary research
interests center on marriage in early Islamic jurisprudence but she is also interested
in modern appropriations of classical texts. She is the author of Sexual Ethics and
Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur ! an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence (Oneworld,
2006), and co-author of Islam: The Key Concepts (Routledge, 2008). She is cur-
rently working on a biography of the jurist al-Shāfi ! ı̄.
John R. Bowen is the Dunbar-Van Cleve Professor in Arts and Sciences at Washington
University in St. Louis. He studies problems of pluralism, law, and religion, and in
particular contemporary efforts to rethink Islamic norms and law in Asia, Europe,
and North America. He has written on Asia in Islam, Law and Equality in Indone-
sia: An Anthropology of Public Reasoning (Cambridge, 2003), and his Why the
French Don’t Like Headscarves (Princeton, 2007) concerns current debates in
France on Islam and laïcité. Forthcoming are Shaping French Islam (Princeton) and
The New Anthropology of Islam (Cambridge).
Christopher Buck is author of Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy (Kalimat, 2005),
Paradise and Paradigm: Key Symbols in Persian Christianity and the Bahá ! í Faith
(SUNY Press, 1999), Symbol and Secret: Qur ! an Commentary in Bahá ! u ! lláh’s
Kitáb-i Íqán (Kalimat, 1995/2004), and a chapter in The Blackwell Companion to
the Qur ! ān (Blackwell, 2006). He is a Pennsylvania attorney and independent
scholar (Ph.D. 1996; JD 2006), having formerly taught at Michigan State Uni-
versity (2000–4), Quincy University (1999–2000), Millikin University (1997–9),
and Carleton University (1994–6), where he variously taught American Studies,
African American Studies, Islamic Studies, Religious Studies, Argument Theory and
Research Writing.
Art Buehler is Senior Lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He
is a scholar of the phenomenon of transregional S.ūf ı̄ networks and the transmission
of Islamic revivalist ideas, and is senior editor of the Journal of the History of

xiii
RELIGIOUS MINORITY RIGHTS

Christopher Buck

Islam is experiencing an identity crisis that has precipitated a world crisis. Radical
Islamists are in the news almost every day, yet Westerners are taught that radical
Islamism is not “true Islam.” Islam, we are told, means peace, yet that public identity
is typically not reflected in the social mirror of the popular press. Every time a suicide
bomb is detonated, the image of a peaceful Islam is exploded along with it. In the
popular mind, Islam is as Islam does. Another yardstick by which Islamic claims to a
peaceful authenticity are measured is the treatment of religious minorities within an
Islamic state. Both Islamic and Western states, generally, claim to respect human
rights, within the context of Islamic and democratic ideals, respectively. A Western
nation-state’s identity as a democracy will be measured not only against its own
democratic ideals, but against an emerging body of international human rights law.
Whether by national or international standards, the acid test of democracy is its
treatment of minorities. The same holds true for Islamic states. For all of the rhetoric
professing Islam’s respect for human rights, human wrongs within the modern
Muslim world must still be addressed, even if not redressed.
Not all religious minorities within predominantly Muslim countries are treated
similarly. Comparatively speaking, Jewish and Christian minorities typically fare bet-
ter than other minority faith-communities within Muslim societies functioning under
Islamic law. But certain minority religions within Islamic states have experienced
hardships of such proportions as to attract the attention of the international com-
munity. This chapter briefly looks at the Alevis, the Ahmadiyya, and the Bahá ! ís and
argues that Islamic majoritarian treatment of minorities – who are a problem for the
majority because they hold unwelcome beliefs – reveals much about the real nature of
particular claims to Islamic authenticity.
This chapter also suggests that Islamic identity and praxis must now withstand the
scrutiny of the international community – a relatively new situation that certainly did
not exist when Islam was the world’s superpower during the so-called Dark Ages of
Europe. Inevitably, Islamic law will be measured against international law, and will
increasingly be constrained by it. More importantly, in the twenty-first century, the
legal “right” of minority religions to an identity may be as important as the “truth” of
their respective identities. The cosmopolitanism of human rights requires the right
to an identity of a minority where that identity stands in tension with the identity of
the majority.
Three of the most controversial religious minorities within the Islamic world will be
examined in their respective socio-historical contexts: the Alevis in Turkey, the
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Ahmadiyya in Pakistan, the Bahá ! ís of Iran. These three faith-communities provide
ideal subjects for a comparative study of the identities of religious minorities within
the modern Muslim world. In an increasingly globalized world, Islamic identity is
ultimately a legal as well as a religious issue. Characterizing the Ahmadiyya and the
“Bahá ! í Faith” as “Islamic minorities” is problematic in itself, as the Ahmadis profess
themselves as Muslims while the Bahá ! ís do not. Indeed, the distinctive identity of the
Bahá ! í Faith as an independent world religion is universally upheld by the Bahá ! í
scriptures, authorities, and adherents themselves, while the adamantine Islamic iden-
tity of the Ahmadiyya is universally upheld by the Ahmadiyya writings, authorities,
and adherents with equal vigor. Where the self-identity of each of these two religious
minorities is at issue within a given Islamic state offers a case-study in terms of Islamic
claims to authenticity.
So, what is Islamic identity? More to the point is this question: Can an Islamic state
tolerate a religious minority that has an alternative Islamic identity (as in the case of
the Alevis), a rival Islamic identity (as in the case of the Ahmadiyya), or a post-Islamic
identity (as in the case of the Bahá ! ís)? The resolution of these vexed questions
depends on which lens is used as a frame and focus. Here, the choice of the frame-
work of analysis is critical, for it will largely determine the outcome. This study
employs a three-faceted inquiry. The identities of religious minorities within Islamic
states implicates 1) etic (outsider/majoritarian), 2) emic (insider/minority), and 3)
international perspectives. Together, these three perspectives operate as a prism that
works its own ideological optics, refracting claims to Islamic identity and breaking
those claims into their constituent colors – the spectral measure of which is the treat-
ment of religious minorities in an Islamic state.
Thus, this chapter explores Islamic and non-Islamic identities from multiple per-
spectives – external, internal, and international. External identity represents the
perspective of dominant Islamic authorities. Internal identity emanates from the per-
spective of the faith-community itself. International opinion regarding the identity of
both religious minorities and the majority of a given Islamic state is best viewed from
the perspective of international human rights standards. In trying to make sense of all
three vantage points, the connections between how Islamic authorities characterize
certain religious minorities and how they treat them with respect to fundamental
human rights will be explored. It is critical, then, to be clear throughout which per-
spective is being presented.
Islam, which has core beliefs and practices, lacks a central authority. Long before
the abolition of the caliphate by Kemal Atatürk on March 2, 1924, the caliph had
largely been a figurehead since 1258. Even before, the caliph was never a universal
authority in Islam. Doctrinally, core Islamic beliefs and praxis were never reduced
to a single creed or code. Sociologically, within the Muslim world, not only is the
range of ethnicities, languages, and cultural traditions rich and variegated, there is a
surprising range of Islamic identities as well. Ultimately, Islamic identity is as plural
as it is plastic. Norms define and boundaries confine. These boundaries are in flux;
they are as perceptual as they are conceptual. Whatever normative “Islam” is sup-
posed to be is constantly being negotiated and renegotiated. As might be expected,
Muslim questions surrounding the alternatively Islamic, rival Islamic, or post-Islamic
identities of religious minorities within Islamic nation-states are vexing for Islamic
orthodoxies.

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The very notion of an Islamic “orthodoxy” is itself problematic. The concept is
so theologically freighted that to speak of an Islamic orthodoxy begs the question.
Heterodoxy is anything that departs from orthodoxy – that is, any belief that varies
significantly from the perspective of the religious majority and is therefore objection-
able to the dominant religion. Strictly speaking, notions of “orthodoxy” and “hetero-
doxy” are simply social realities. Here, and purely as a term of convenience, by
Islamic “orthodoxy” we mean any establishment of “official” or “mainstream” Islam
that, by dint of its dominance, has coercive power to render the existence of minor-
ities problematic where such groups hold unwelcome beliefs. In pluralist societies
committed to freedom of religion, even the religious majority has no coercive power
over the religious minorities. But in a state where a particular formulation of “cor-
rect” Islamic belief is maintained and enforced, the existence of religious minorities
whose beliefs and practices differ from the normative majoritarian position often tests
the limits of the dominant religious leadership, which may have recourse in using the
state’s apparatus to suppress and, in some cases, to oppress a minority, with the goal
of eventually marginalizing it out of existence.
Simply put, the Alevis are patently heterodox by normative Islamic standards,
while the Ahmadiyya and the Bahá ! ís are doubly heterodox due to their post-Islamic
claims to revelation. All three of these groups are considered heterodox by their
respective orthodox Sunnı̄ (and Shı̄ " ı̄) majorities. This is particularly problematic
under sharı̄ " a law, which can theoretically accommodate non-Muslim minorities with
some degree of egalitarianism, if not quasi-equality, but only if they fit within a pre-
scribed religious framework. A religious minority that fits within that framework is
afforded a degree of protection. This is the case with Christians and Jews – “Peoples
of the Book” – who enjoy, in theory at least, recognition and protection within an
explicit Qur ! anic framework. Zoroastrians, Hindus, and other religious communities
– such as the cluster of disparate groups that fell under the Qur ! anic rubric of Sabians
– have historically gained a certain measure of toleration within Islamic states as well.
But a religious minority within an Islamic state that does not fit within that frame-
work (such as the Alevis, the Ahmadiyya, and the Bahá ! ís) is not afforded such pro-
tection. That is where the international human rights regime can, on a case-by-case
basis, intervene – and does so with increasing frequency.
Under sharı̄ " a regimes in the past, the Alevis have, for the most part, historically
adopted strategies of survival by secrecy, until secularization from within intervened,
as in the case of modern Turkey, to secure their status as legally protected minorities.
In the case of the Ahmadiyya in Pakistan and the Bahá ! ís of Iran, the legal regimes of
their respective countries bar full recognition and rights, leaving secularization –
in the form of international law – as an ameliorative and constraining force. In so
saying, this is not to suggest that religious minorities will fare better to the extent
that Islamic governments abandon sharı̄ " a regimes. Yet some adjustment has to be
advocated. While implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (discussed further in this chapter) will require such adjustments, it does not
oblige the secularization of Islamic states.
The paradox of being heterodox is this: how can a religious minority either main-
tain its Islamic identity (as in the case of the Ahmadiyya) or maintain its independent,
post-Islamic identity (as in the case of the Bahá ! ís) where a dominant Islamic ortho-
doxy categorically rejects such self-defined identities as illicit, invalid, and illegal?

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Simply put, the quasi-Islamic identity of the Alevis, the rival (revivalist) Islamic iden-
tity of the Ahmadiyya and the post-Islamic (independent) identity of the Bahá ! ís all
offend orthodox Islamic identities. These affronts – these offenses – while unintended,
are variously taken as a real threat to traditional Islamic identities.
Times change, and so do Islamic identities. The Alevis have been branded in the
past as heretics – and in 2007 as “pagans” for their musical religious ceremonies and
liberal customs – but now enjoy a relative degree of state support in Turkey. More
significantly, the Alevis constitute the ruling elite in present-day Syria (where they are
known as Alawis). But the Ahmadiyya and the Bahá ! ís are generally regarded as
apostates. As will be seen, given the clash of religious identities within in the modern
Muslim world, secularization is often superior to sharı̄ " a law in integrating religious
minorities having quasi-Islamic, rival Islamic, and post-Islamic identities.
Minorities are defined by majorities (unless the minority is a ruling elite, as with
the Alawis). Even an Islamic democracy may fail to equalize rights in a Muslim state.
The modern Muslim Middle East demonstrates, time and again, that information
management in the hands of a majority determines social policy and overrides the
self-identity of the minorities. In Pakistan, for instance, the Ahmadis profess to be
Muslims, while Pakistani law strips the Ahmadiyya community of the right to mani-
fest its Islamic identity. To cite another instance, the Bahá ! ís of Iran consider them-
selves to be an independent faith-community, while the Iranian regime is intransigent
in its refusal to permit the Bahá ! ís to practice their religion. Thus, the same group
may have two distinct (even contradictory) identities: that defined by the prevailing
Muslim majority, and that maintained by the minority group. Not only do these
power disparities create formidable obstacles for scholarship in understanding these
identities (especially in negotiating a middle ground between anti-minority polem-
ics and pro-minority apologetics), they obviously pose problems for the minorities
themselves.
Muslim majorities strenuously maintain that the rights of religious minorities are
respected in an Islamic state. To varying degrees, this may be true, so long as those
minorities do not pose any threat (real or perceived) to Islam. Put in different words,
the way that Islamic minorities are treated within the Islamic world depends, to a
large degree, on how the religious identities of these minorities are defined by the
Islamic states in which they live. This, in turn, can lead to judgments about claims
regarding Islamic identity by the surrounding, largely secular world.
To make matters worse, controversies within the modern Muslim world ignite con-
troversies outside that world. While majority norms define Islamic identity within
Muslim states, minority norms define Western valuations of those same Islamic iden-
tities. Clashes within the Muslim world exacerbate the clashes without. Social histor-
ian P. R. Kumaraswamy (2003: 244) notes that “discussions on minorities have often
been controversial and politically loaded.” States typically resent and resist “any out-
side criticisms over their treatment of their minority population and consider it to be a
sovereign and inviolable subject.” Yet, as Kumaraswamy observes, “they do not hesi-
tate to use the treatment of minorities by their adversaries as a useful foreign policy
instrument.” In other words, minority issues within Muslim states are lightning rods
for criticism by foreign states.
Not everything that affects the body politic is political in the sense that Kumaras-
wamy asserts. For instance, at a White House news briefing on March 28, 2006, a

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spokesman expressed President Bush’s concern over worsening situation of the
Bahá ! ís in Iran. While such human rights concerns inform the policy of the USA, they
are not determinative of it. Here, we see a triangulation of tensions between various
Islamic orthodoxies, their constituent Islamic heterodoxies, and universal normative
values, collectively defined by the human rights canons of international law, to which
many Islamic states are signatories as well. There is a large body of literature on
whether or not the human rights standards of international law represent Western
values or universal values, and the view that they are Western is often advanced as an
excuse for noncompliance.
Thus there are three competing sets of Islamic identities that act and react on any
given religious minority in an Islamic state and these sets of identities will be exam-
ined here with the three groups in question: (1) the Alevis in Turkey, (2) the Ahmadi-
yya in Pakistan, and (3) the Bahá ! ís in Iran. Of these three nations, Pakistan and Iran
have been designated “countries of particular concern,” “for ongoing, egregious
violations of religious freedom” by the United States Commission on International
Religious Freedom (2005). To label any Islamic state as a “country of particular
concern” necessarily entails the interface of three identities: (1) the perceived identity
of that religious minority within the broader framework of the group identity of the
dominant Islamic majority; (2) the self-identity of the religious minority within an
Islamic state; and (3) judgments made by the international community regarding
these plural – and problematic – identities. A religious minority has its own moral
compass and religious laws. These, in turn, are constrained by the overarching
authority of the Islamic majority which, in turn, is constrained, at least in principle,
under international law. Thus, concentric identities are layered within local, national,
and international contexts that act and react on each other.

Outsider-majority views

The Alevis in Turkey
In 2002 the Alevis of Turkey numbered some twelve to fifteen million, comprising an
estimated 20 to 25 percent of the total Anatolian population. The Turkish Alevis form
a distinct religious and quasi-ethnic group. Alevis are the second most numerous
ethno-religious minority of republican Turkey. The vast majority of Alevis are ethnic
and linguistic Turks, although about 20 per cent of Alevis are Kurds, equal to about
25 per cent of the total Kurdish population of Turkey. Alevis live primarily in Eastern
Turkey or Anatolia (the part of Turkey that lies in Asia).
Severely persecuted during Ottoman rule, Alevis adopted secrecy as a survival
strategy, and so practiced dissimulation (taqiyya). Although Alevis have a distinct
genealogy going back to early Shı̄ " ı̄ history, some of the outward identifiers of being
Muslim – whether in the orthodox Sunnı̄ or Shı̄ " ı̄ sense – are missing. For instance,
Alevis do not observe the fast of Ramad.ān. Instead, they fast for 12 days during
the month of Muh.arram. Neither do they perform their obligatory prayers five
times daily, as Muslims are required to do. Nor do they make the pilgrimage to
Mecca. The fact that fasting, prayer, and pilgrimage – three of the five “pillars of
Islam” – are conspicuously absent raises serious questions about the identity of Alevis
as Muslims.

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The Alevis have reemerged in the past two decades as a largely secular, democratic
community both in Turkey and in Europe. More important is Alevi identity in rela-
tion to what has been termed the “Turkish–Islam” synthesis that aims to transform
inter-communal conflict into a sense of greater, particular Turkish, unity. Poyraz
(2005: 512) argues that “the Turkish State uses the Alevis as a form of insurance
against those who oppose secularism.” The Turkish state has found an ally in the Alevis,
who have proved useful as a bulwark against the encroachment of ultra-conservative
Muslim clerics. But there is a more practical, immediate reason for recognizing the
minority rights of Alevis, as Sahin explains: “Since the global discourse of identity as
right has been accepted by the EU, Turkey is forced to promulgate laws to recognize
its religious and ethnic minorities” (2005: 467). The question of the Islamic identity
of the Alevi minority entails, in a positive form, an active state interest – an interest
that we will see in the case of the Ahmadiyya of Pakistan and the Bahá ! ís of Iran, but
manifest in decidedly negative and oppressive ways in those instances.

The Ahmadiyya in Pakistan
The Ahmadiyya is a worldwide community, with Hazrat Mirzā T.āhir Ah.mad as its
Supreme Head. The Ahmadiyya have around four million adherents in Pakistan
(Khan 2003: 218). Perhaps the most well-known Ahmadi of recent times is Sir
Muhammad Zafrullah Khan (d. 1986), former president of the International Court of
Justice, Pakistan’s first foreign minister, a translator of the Qur ! ān and paternal grand-
father of Ahmadi author Amjad Mahmood Khan, a 2004 graduate of Harvard Law
School, who has published a legal analysis of the plight of the Pakistani Ahmadiyya in
Harvard Human Rights Journal (2003).
In his article, Khan presents the official Islamic perspective of the government of
Pakistan, of the Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan, and the international human
rights regime. Khan notes that, in 1974, the orthodox Sunnı̄ Muslim " ulamā ! success-
fully pressured then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to declare Ahmadis as non-
Muslims. Accordingly, Bhutto oversaw the introduction into Pakistan’s parliament of
Articles 260(3)(a) and (b), defining the term “Muslim” in the Pakistani context and
excluding groups that were, legally speaking, deemed to be non-Muslim. Effective as
of September 6, 1974, this constitutional amendment explicitly stripped Ahmadis of
their identity as Muslims. In 1984, the Government added Section 298(c) to its Penal
Code, a section commonly referred to as the “anti-Ahmadi law.” Used by the gov-
ernment and anti-Ahmadi religious groups to target and harass Ahmadis, the section
prohibits Ahmadis from calling themselves Muslims or posing as Muslims, from
referring to their faith as Islam, from preaching or propagating their faith, from invit-
ing others to accept the Ahmadi faith, and from insulting the religious feelings of
recognized Sunnı̄ Muslims. The vague wording of the provision that forbids Ahmadis
from “directly or indirectly” posing as Muslims has enabled mainstream Muslim
religious leaders to bring charges against Ahmadis for using the standard Muslim greet-
ing form and for naming their children Muh.ammad. The constitutionality of Section
298(c) was upheld in a split-decision Supreme Court case in 1996. The punishment
for violation of the section is imprisonment for up to three years and a fine.
This “excommunication” of the Ahmadiyya as Muslims by force of law was a
clear extension of the hegemony that orthodox Muslim clerics wielded. Divesting the

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Pakistani Ahmadiyya community of its Islamic identity was followed by legal
entrenchment of the anti-blasphemy provisions in Pakistan’s Penal Code. These pro-
visions are systematically aimed at the eradication of every vestige of Islamic identity
that the Ahmadiyya possessed. It is apparent that the Ahmadis in general are caught
on the horns of a dilemma: while the Ahmadiyya see themselves as authentic
Muslims, the theocratic force of Pakistani law endangers any visible manifestation of
that identity. Here, the prevailing Islamic orthodoxy has, through the instrumentality
of state law, legally barred the Ahmadiyya from openly practicing their faith as pro-
fessed Muslims.

The Bahá ! ís in Iran
The identity of the Bahá ! í Faith is that of an independent world religion, and not as a
sub-group within Islam. Given the longstanding, nearly universal and legally binding
recognition of the independent status of the Faith worldwide, this is not merely a
matter of internal Bahá ! í claims versus those of certain Islamic authorities. However
obvious this may be to the Bahá ! ís themselves, the Iranian authorities have a contrary
view based on Islamic doctrine that bars any religion from legitimately appearing
after the time of Muh.ammad. Absolutely fundamental to Islamic identity is the
finality of Muh.ammad, whom the Qur ! ān dignifies as the “seal of the prophets”
(Qur ! ān 33:40) and thus the last of the prophets. Therefore it is an utter impossibil-
ity, from the strictly Muslim point of view, for any prophet to appear after Muh.am-
mad. Since the Bahá ! í Faith was established in the nineteenth century, its truth-claims
are automatically rejected because of the doctrine of the finality of Muh.ammad’s
prophethood (Buck 1995: 191–8; Buck 2007).
The idea that the Bahá ! í Faith is a sect of Islam could brook no tolerance by
Muslim authorities. This sectarian notion of Bahá ! í origins is primarily a Western
mischaracterization. The notion that the Bahá ! í Faith has an Islamic identity and is
an “Islamic minority” would, unless carefully contextualized, lend support to a perni-
cious misrepresentation of the Bahá ! í Faith which is, after all, more aptly character-
ized as simply a religious minority within any given Islamic state. Simply put, the
Bahá ! í Faith has Iranian Islamic origins, and thus a great deal of continuity with Shı̄ " ı̄
Islam, yet emerged as an entirely independent religion, replete with its own scriptures,
laws, and identity. In a word, the Bahá ! í Faith is the daughter religion of Islam
in much the same way as Christianity sprang from Judaism. In this respect, both
Christianity and the Bahá ! í Faith are secondary monotheisms, arising out of primary
monotheisms. Although historically derivative, they are independent.
The Islamic Republic of Iran professes its support of human rights, arguing that
Islam has long been the promoter and protector of human rights far in advance of
Western secular formulations. Ironically, some of the United Nations human rights
language has made its way into the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Outlining the “General Principles” of the Constitution, Article 13 states: “Zoroastrian,
Jewish, and Christian Iranians are the only recognized religious minorities, who,
within the limits of the law, are free to perform their religious rites and ceremonies,
and to act according to their own canon in matters of personal affairs and religious
education.” Members of these three religions are considered by Iranian clerics to be
“People of the Book” and are therefore accorded Qur ! anic protection. The effect of

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this provision is to deny Bahá ! ís their freedom of religion. Bahá ! ís are considered
apostates, and their blood may be shed with impunity, perhaps even with clerical
approval.
The vocabulary of human rights, which has been used in the Iranian Constitution,
does not carry the universal application characteristic of international law. Elsewhere
in the Constitution, under the rubric, “The Rights of the People,” Article 20 adds:
“All citizens of the country, both men and women, equally enjoy the protection of the
law and enjoy all human, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, in conform-
ity with Islamic criteria.” Clearly, the Bahá ! ís do not conform to these legal criteria.
While the Iranian government has not denied that Bahá ! ís are citizens of Iran, they do
not enjoy equal rights.
In the years immediately following the 1979 Iranian revolution, clerics ordered
the arbitrary arrest of Bahá ! ís and the torture and execution of over 200 of them
(particularly members of Bahá ! í administrative bodies, sometimes with demands that
their families pay for the bullets used to kill them). Other actions taken against
Bahá ! ís include confiscation of property, seizure of bank assets, expulsion from
schools and universities, denial of employment, cancellation of pensions (with
demands that the government be reimbursed for past pension payments), desecration
and destruction of Bahá ! í cemeteries and holy places, criminalizing Bahá ! í activities
and thus forcing the dissolution of Bahá ! í administration, and pronouncing Bahá ! í
marriages as illegal acts of prostitution. In addition, there were relentless propaganda
campaigns aimed at inflaming anti-Bahá ! í passions to instigate mob violence and
crimes against Bahá ! ís. There are many documented instances of this state-instigated
incitement to violence (see Ghanea 2002; Buck 2003). This phase of the anti-Bahá ! í
campaign has aptly been described as “civil death” – a cultural cleansing that collec-
tively affects a community estimated to be 300,000 Iranians.
After 1985, with Iran having been scandalized for its violation of the rights of
Bahá ! ís and other religious minorities, the number of executions of Bahá ! ís sharply
dropped, and, in 1987 and 1988, most of the Bahá ! ís being held in prison were
released. While this may imply that improved treatment of Bahá ! ís in Iran was due to
the international attention focused on the issue, the cause of the improvement is not
known and thus it should not be assumed that international pressure was a decisive
factor. Yet there is more direct evidence of the efficacy of diplomatic recourse in
partially restoring rights to education. In the early 1980s, a proportionally large
number of Bahá ! í children – probably most, but not all – had been expelled from
public and private schools in Iran. But international pressure caused that policy
to be rescinded, and, in the late 1980s, the Iranian regime adopted a new policy
of concealment. This shift in anti-Bahá ! í tactics masked a new and insidious strategy
formalized in a secret 1991 memorandum from the Iranian Supreme Revolutionary
Cultural Council on “the Bahá ! í question.” This document surfaced in 1993, first
appearing in the report by Special Representative Reynaldo Galindo Pohl to the
UN Commission on Human Rights. The policy recommendations of this document
are still in force. Personally endorsed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 25,
1991 and written by Dr. Seyyed Mohammad Golpaygani, secretary of the Supreme
Revolutionary Cultural Council, this document advises government officials, among
other things, to expel Bahá ! ís from universities, “once it becomes known that they
are Bahá ! ís.” It further states: “Deny them employment if they identify themselves as

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Bahá ! ís.” “Deny them any position of influence.” The policy effectively denies Bahá ! ís
the right to higher education, a policy that had already been in effect since 1980. No
Bahá ! í can, in practice, attend university in Iran. As a result, Bahá ! ís have organized
the Bahá ! í Institute for Higher Education (BIHE), popularly known as “Bahá ! í Open
University.”
The Bahá ! í International Community reports that Iranian Bahá ! ís seeking to enter
Iran’s vocational and technical institutes are effectively barred from admission for the
2007–8 academic year, since the 2007 form for the entrance examination indicates
that only one box may be marked for religion. Applicants are given three choices to
self-identity as religious minorities – Zoroastrian, Jewish, or Christian. If none of
these boxes is marked, the applicant will be considered Muslim. This is unacceptable
to Bahá ! ís as tantamount to a de facto denial of their faith.
As disturbing as this surely is to human rights advocates, it is not surprising.
Bahá ! ís are typically denied full freedom of religion throughout many states in the
Muslim Middle East. There are two principal reasons for this: 1) Bahá ! ís lack
dhimmı̄ (protected) status and are therefore excluded from Qur ! anic protection; and
2) the Bahá ! í Faith is a post-Islamic religion – a theoretical impossibility considering
Muh.ammad’s ontological status as the “seal of the prophets.” Apart from the day
of judgment, Islam cannot conceive of a post-Islamic act of revelation, much less
theologically tolerate a post-Islamic claim to revelation.

Insider-minority perspectives

The Alevis in Turkey
“Alevi” means “of " Alı̄” and thus comes to mean “follower of " Alı̄.” Alevis revere " Alı̄
ibn Abı̄ T.ālib (d. 661). Thus they have been called the “Deifiers of " Alı̄.” This reflects
" Alı̄’s exalted station in Alevi theology. While Alevis claim a distinct identity, it is one
that neither conflicts with Turkish national identity nor is inimical to the Turkish
state. That identity kept at bay the threat of Alevi fusion into the Sunnı̄ majority.
According to David Zeidan:

The resurgence of Sunni fundamentalism that began in the 1950s and has
recently grown much stronger also pushed the Alevis to the political left.
Many Alevis reacted by stressing their separate identity and reinterpreting
Alevism in socialist and Marxist idiom that seemed to have an affinity to Alevi
ideals of equality and traditions of revolt.
(Zeidan 1999:77)

That “revolt” has gone full circle in Turkey, where the Alevi minority now enjoys
the blessings of the moderate Sunnı̄ majority. The Alevi question became one answer
to countering the threat of Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey, where the former
“Deifiers of " Alı̄” are now the reifiers of Turkish secularism.

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The Ahmadiyya in Pakistan
The insider perspective is clear: Ahmadis consider themselves to be Muslims and
observe Islamic practices. According to Khan (2003: 218, n. 4), the Ahmaddiyya are
self-professed Muslims, and their claim to Muslim self-identity is valid and should be
immune from exclusion by a Sunnı̄ majority under the following rationale. As followers
of the prophetic restorationist and messianic claimant, Mirzā Ghulām Ahmad
(d. 1908) of Qadian, India, the Ahmadiyya profess what they consider to be the “true
spirit” of Islam. They see their beliefs and practices as the restoration of pristine
Islam. An orthodoxy may well define what and who is heterodox. But the arrow can
quickly fly back at the archer, when one considers that orthodoxy and heresy are fluid
notions that entail power relations. The irony is this: the Ahmadiyya, in their view,
practice a more authentic form of Islam – one that is purified from 14 centuries of
accretion. According to Pakistani authorities, the Ahmadiyya do have the freedom to
practice their religion – but not as Muslims. So, while “might” makes “right” when
the Sunnı̄ orthodoxy in Pakistan proscribes the Ahmadiyya practice of the same
religion under penalty of law, international religious human rights advocates see this
as a clear breach of religious freedom.

The Bahá ! ís in Iran
What kind of Islamic identity do Bahá ! ís have? Are Bahá ! ís, for instance, Muslims?
The simple answer is no, since the Bahá ! í Faith is an independent world religion.
Bahá ! ís do not, in fact, profess to be Muslim, although they recognize the divine
station of Muh.ammad. Because of the Islamic origins of their Faith, however, Bahá ! ís
have much in common with Muslims. What distinguishes the Bahá ! í Faith from Islam
is the revelation of Bahá ! u ! lláh (d. 1892), the socio-moral principles of which marked
a major “paradigm shift” in what may be characterized as a paradigm of unity.
Explaining the relationship of the Bahá ! í Faith to Islam raises the larger Bahá ! í
concept of “Progressive Revelation.” Although the Faith has a close historical link with
Islam, Bahá ! í self-identity is intrinsically and intimately related to all of the world’s
great religions. Islam is seen as a major event in a series of decisive historical moments
when great spiritual teachers appeared to catalyze the course of social evolution
through renewed spiritual teachings and new social laws. To invoke the Western term,
these Prophets are both “forth-tellers” (the literal meaning of the Greek prophētes) as
well as foretellers. Each communicated a present message and future “prophecy.”
Prophecies converged in presaging the advent of Bahá ! u ! lláh, a world-messiah whose
principles and spiritual influence would bring about world unity. As “World-
Reformer,” Bahá ! u ! lláh advocated world peace, parliamentary democracy, disarma-
ment, an international language, harmony of science and religion, interfaith concord,
gender and racial equality. From a historicist perspective, in precocious anticipation
of a global society, Bahá ! u ! lláh’s signal contribution was to sacralize certain secular
modernist reforms, integrated within an irreducibly original paradigm of world unity
in which peace is made sacred. From an emic perspective, Bahá ! u ! lláh’s principles
have a divine origin and, if carried out, promise the social salvation of society.
Designating his son " Abdu ! l-Bahá (d. 1921) as interpreter, exemplar and successor,
and by ordaining the eventual formation of elected councils, Bahá ! u ! lláh instituted

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his Covenant as the organizing principle of the Bahá ! í community and guarantor of
its integrity, safeguarding against major schism. Succeeding " Abdu ! l-Bahá in 1921 as
“Guardian” of the Bahá ! í Faith, Shoghi Effendi (d. 1957) globalized and evolved
Bahá ! í administration as a system of Local and National Spiritual Assemblies, lead-
ing to the election of The Universal House of Justice in 1963, the international Bahá ! í
governing body, established on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel.
While Islamic sensitivities need to be respected, many would argue that they do not
outweigh human rights considerations. Ironically, secular values can sometimes be
more universal than religious ones. Consequently, in a clash of religious value sys-
tems, international law may be the only practical arbiter until the conflict is resolved.
In the case of Iranian Islam, there is a considerable distance between the consti-
tutional rhetoric of respect for minority rights and the prevailing sociopolitical reality.
As a direct result of Iran’s treatment of its Bahá ! í minority, the ultimate injury-in-
fact is refractory damage to the reputation of Islam in the eyes of a critical public
that uncritically tends to see Islam as monolithic. By the yardstick of minority rights,
Iran’s efforts to preserve Islamic values have arguably had the effect of perverting
them.

International perspectives
International law exerts external pressures on a given country. Religious human rights
(i.e., freedom of religion) are a subset of human rights. Human rights watchers monitor
inequitable legal/policy restrictions on religious minorities by governments in response
to perceived religious threats. In 1998, the USA enacted the International Religious
Freedom Act, making religious freedom a feature of its foreign policy. Passed by the
Senate on October 9, 1998 and unanimously approved by the House by voice vote on
the following day, President Clinton signed the International Religious Freedom Act of
1998 (IRFA) into law on October 27, 1998. That Act established an independent and
bipartisan advisory Commission on International Religious Freedom, an office in the
State Department, an Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, and
an Annual Report on International Religious Freedom. The President, moreover, is
required to take defined actions against states that violate religious freedom.
Human rights standards encoded as international law serve as the secular norm for
religious rights. Discrimination as to religion or belief is condemned and this proscrip-
tion against religious discrimination is an essential feature of the United Nations
human rights charters. Several instruments of international law have been adopted –
with varying force of law – to protect freedom of religion. They are: 1) Article 1(3)
and 13 of the United Nations Charter; 2) Articles 1, 2, 18, Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (adopted December 10, 1948, GA Res. 217, UN Doc. A/810, 71); 3)
Article 2, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
(1948); 4) Articles 2, 18, 26 and 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights [ICCPR] (adopted 1966 and effective March 23, 1976) (see
pp. 654–5) Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Religious Intolerance
and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief (adopted November 25, 1981); 6)
UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious
and Linguistic Minorities (1992); and 7) Article 14, Convention on the Rights of the
Child. Their language is strong but their enforcement is weak. This problem is

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nowhere better illustrated than in the unresolved problems affecting the Bahá ! ís of
Iran and the Ahmadiyya in Pakistan.
Article 18 of the ICCPR protects the right to “freedom of thought, conscience and
religion” and the “freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief” of one’s choice.
Article 18 is concerned only with one’s right to profess and practice one’s belief and
not at all concerned with the “truth” of one’s religious identity. Thus, what inter-
national law requires of Islamic states is not that they recognize religions per se, but
that they recognize fundamental religious human rights. Of the instruments cited
above, this article is the most directly applicable, legally binding provision on
religious freedom. These complex distinctions among international covenants and
conventions, however, are not decisive in and of themselves. In clarifying the legal
distinction between international law and non-binding instruments, it should not be
implied that the critical distinction is the legal status of the instrument (convention
versus declaration), but rather the process of ratification by state parties. While inter-
national religious human rights law is evolving, it remains for member states to
implement it.
Laws of religious freedom in Pakistan and Iran are vitiated by countervailing laws
against Ahmadis and policies against Bahá ! ís respectively. Technically, there are no
“laws against” the Bahá ! ís in Iran, but rather a lack of legal protection due to silence
in the Iranian Constitution. Government action against Bahá ! ís has been mandated
not by laws but by government orders and instructions. While such laws, policies
and directives may incorporate human rights language as a ringing endorsement of
international covenants in theory, they may ring as a hollow echo in actual practice.
Various United Nations resolutions have condemned these laws and their practices.
Examples, where relevant, will be provided below.

The Alevis in Turkey
Turkey, of course, must satisfy the Copenhagen criteria in order to join the European
Union, and this will act, in concert with Turkish secularism and the force of inter-
national law, as a further constraint against any reflex of repression. According to the
International Religious Freedom Report 2005 released by the Bureau of Democracy,
Human Rights, and Labor, the Alevis have experienced relatively minor and isolated
incidents of discrimination (US Department of State 2005a). Given the increasingly
ideal Turkish state relations in recent support of the Alevi community as a bulwark
against the perceived and real threat of radical Islam, however, these problems
affecting the Alevis in Turkey are likely to resolve themselves.

The Ahmadiyya in Pakistan
According to the same International Religious Freedom Report 2005 released by
the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, the situation of the Ahmadiyya
is far most serious in terms of religious human rights concerns (US Department of
State 2005b). Critics of Pakistan’s anti-Ahmadi laws point out that Ordinance XX of
Pakistan’s Penal Code violates Article 18 of the ICCPR, under its provisions that “no
one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a
religion or belief of his own choice.” This analysis is borne out by United Nations

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Resolution 1985/21. Under this analysis, international law is more concerned with
the “right” of the Ahmadiyya to profess and practice Islam rather than with the
“truth” of their Islamic identity. There are distinct advantages that will accrue if
international law is more effectively enforced.

The Bahá ! ís in Iran
In addition to the situation reported above, other recent actions in Iran against the
Bahá ! í community have been brought to light by the United Nations. On December
16, 2005, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution decrying human
rights violations in Iran, citing

escalation and increased frequency of discrimination and other human rights
violations against the Bahá ! í, including cases of arbitrary arrest and deten-
tion, the denial of freedom of religion or of publicly carrying out communal
affairs, the disregard of property rights, the destruction of sites of religious
importance, the suspension of social, educational and community-related
activities and the denial of access to higher education, employment, pensions,
adequate housing and other benefits.
(Bahá ! í World 2005)

The Iranian Bahá ! ís have long been persecuted for their religious faith. Persecution
entails a systematic policy of discrimination by a religious majority on the basis of
heterodox beliefs of the oppressed minority. The International Religious Freedom
Report 2005 released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor speci-
fies these human rights violations (US Department of State 2005c). This may partly be
a symptom of a larger problem: Mohamed Eltayeb, an expert in the human rights
field, points out that, in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution, a number of Muslim
countries attempted “to construct alternative ‘Islamic’ human rights instruments,”
which, however, “have fallen far below the international standards” (cited in Buck
2003: 91–2).
The Bahá ! í question is exacerbated by one particular problem in current inter-
national human rights standards: the UN’s Declaration on the Elimination of All
Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief has yet to be
raised to the level of an international convention, even though UN declarations on the
elimination of racial discrimination and discrimination against women have already
been codified as international law (Buck 2003: 91). At issue here is the difference
between a declaration and a convention in the context of international law. The rea-
son a convention takes the force of international law is that it operates as a multi-
lateral treaty. The fact that the UN Declaration is an aspirational document and not
law is not inherently a problem with respect to protecting the Bahá ! ís in Iran, as Iran
is already a party to the ICCPR and is thus bound by its Article 18. This is not to say
that if the provisions of the Declaration became binding they would not be helpful,
but Article 18 already requires Iran to protect the essential religious rights of the
Bahá ! ís.
Protection of the Bahá ! ís in Iran (or of any religious minority anywhere), as a
matter of international law, does not depend on recognition of the religion by the

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state government. Because of the religious identity of some Islamic governments, they
could never, and could never be expected to, recognize the Bahá ! í Faith as an
independent religion. However, they can and they must be expected to permit all
individuals to “have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice” and “either indi-
vidually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion
or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching” (International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights [ICCPR], art. 18). Thus the Bahá ! ís are not seeking from
the Iranian government a formal recognition of the independent identity of the Faith
but rather the right to believe and to practice. The distinction may be fine, yet
religious rights have a clear priority over religious recognition. The Bahá ! í religion
need not be “recognized,” but the religious rights of the Bahá ! ís must be recognized.
From the fact that various Islamic states and institutions have attempted to repli-
cate international human rights language into their respective constitutions and legal
codes, one may observe – and even predict – that international religious human rights
will exert increasing pressures on Islamic regimes found to be in violation of inter-
national norms, to which most Islamic states are signatories and by which they are
legally bound.

Conclusion
It has been shown that the Islamic identities of Islamic minorities are largely a matter
of perspective. Where the legitimacy and rights of a controversial religious minority
within an Islamic state are both in question and in peril, the interplay of what might
be termed a “standpoint epistemology” must be taken into consideration. Like truth
and beauty, Islamic orthodoxy is in the eyes of the beholder. More importantly,
Islamic authenticity is in the hands of the powerful. Only the pressure of international
human rights standards has the universal and even-handed potential needed to con-
strain Islamicate power-brokers from repressing their relatively powerless minorities.
Many in the field of international human rights feel that the Islamic world is the
part of the international community least accepting of the international human rights
regime. Clearly, what is needed is acceptance of international human rights laws, both
in the enlightened self-interests of Islamic authorities, as well as in the interests of
the religious minorities under their governance. Religious minorities that hold
unwelcome beliefs within Islamic states – such as the Alevis of Turkey, the Ahmadiyya
in Pakistan, and the Bahá ! ís of Iran – continue to pose a challenge to the Islamic
identity of its entrenched orthodoxies. This challenge is affrontive, not confrontive.
A test case in Egypt has recently drawn international attention: an Egyptian Bahá ! í
couple requested the Department of Passports and Immigration to add the names of
their daughters to their passports. The department refused to return their passports
and withdrew their ID cards – arguably in violation of their legal rights guaranteed
by the Constitution of Egypt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On
April 4, 2006, a lower administrative court ruled that “[i]t is not inconsistent with
Islamic tenets to mention the religion on this card even though it may be a religion
whose rites are not recognized for open practice, such as Bahá ! ism and the like.” The
Egyptian government has appealed this ruling. On December 16, 2006, the Supreme
Administrative Court issued its final judgment in the case of Husam Izzat
Musa and Ranya Enayat Rushdy, upholding the government’s policy of allowing only

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affiliations of the three officially recognized religions – Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam – on state ID cards and government documents. This ruling sets Egypt’s
religious human rights standards against international standards. However, on 31
March 2008, Egypt’s official national newspaper, Al-Akhbār (“The News”),
announced that Egypt’s government-appointed National Council for Human Rights
has just released its fourth annual report, recommending, inter alia, that the govern-
ment allow the entry of “Bahá ! í” as one of the choices in the religion field on official
identity cards. Time will tell whether this recommendation will herald the dawn of a
new era in the eventual freedom of oppressed religious minorities in Islamic states.
These and other recent events have reinforced the importance of sustained pressure
by the international community on Islamic authorities to conform to international
human rights standards. Accordingly, this chapter is not only about the identities of
the minorities in emic, etic, and international perspectives, but about the perceived
threat posed to the identity of the ruling majority, both by the existence of these
minorities and by the requirements of international law that they be protected. Inter-
national law bears on the right to choose and to practice a religion or belief. The right
to religion as currently incorporated in international law is an individual right, not a
group right, and is independent of the view of any state or people or even the inter-
national community itself as to the identity, nature or value of the belief or religion.
What this has to do with the “identity” of a religious group is where Islamic states
deny individual rights by denying group rights. In mustering the political will of states
to advocate through international bodies and otherwise for the protection of the
rights of members of a religious group, the political realities of efforts to implement
human rights norms are challenging.
Since Islamic authorities are facing increasing pressure under international religious
human rights law to allow religious minorities to maintain their own self-identities –
whether as self-professed Muslims (as the Ahmadiyya maintain), or as self-professed
religionists with a distinct identity separate from Muslims (as the Bahá ! ís maintain),
a full Islamicization of secular religious human rights standards is perhaps the most
formidable challenge of all.

References and further reading
Bahai World (2005) “UN Calls on Iran to Stop Persecution of Bahá ! ís,” available online at
http://www.bahaiworldnews.org/story.cfm?storyid=413.
Buck, C. (1995) Symbol and Secret: Qur ! an Commentary in Bahá ! u ! lláh’s Kitáb-i Íqán, Los
Angeles: Kalimát Press; available online at http://bahai-library.com/books/symbol.secret.
—— (2003) “Islam and Minorities: The Case of the Bahá ! ís,” Studies in Contemporary Islam 5
(1–2): 83–106; available online at http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2005/June/Bahái/
Images/BuckBaháis2005Eng.pdf.
—— (2007) “Beyond the ‘Seal of the Prophets’: Baha ! ullah’s Book of Certitude (Ketab-e Iqan),”
in C. Pedersen, F. Vahman, eds., Religious Texts in Iranian Languages, Copenhagen: Det
Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 369–78.
Furman, U. (2000) “Minorities in Contemporary Islamist Discourse,” Middle Eastern Studies,
36 (4): 1–20.
Ghanea, N. (2002) Human Rights, the U.N. and the Bahá ! ís in Iran, Oxford: George Ronald.
Gualtieri, A. R. (1989) Conscience and Coercion: Ahmadi Muslims and Orthodoxy in Pakistan,
Montreal: Guernica.

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—— (2004) The Ahmadis: Community, Gender, and Politics in a Muslim Society, Montreal:
McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Khan, A. M. (2003) “Persecution of the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan: An Analysis Under
International Law and International Relations,” Harvard Human Rights Journal, 16:
217–44; available online at http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/hrj/iss16/khan.pdf.
Kumaraswamy, P. R. (2003) “Problems of Studying Minorities in the Middle East,” Alterna-
tives: Turkish Journal of International Relations, 2: 244–64; available online at http://
www.alternativesjournal.net/volume2/number2/kumar.pdf
Poyraz, B. (2005) “The Turkish State and Alevis: Changing Parameters of an Uneasy Relation-
ship,” Middle Eastern Studies, 41: 503–16.
Rehman, J. (2000) “Accommodating Religious Identities in an Islamic State: International Law,
Freedom of Religion and the Rights of Religious Minorities,” International Journal on
Minority and Group Rights, 7/2 (February): 139–66.
Sahin, S. (2005) “The Rise of Alevism as a Public Religion,” Current Sociology, 53: 465–85
Shankland, D. (2003) The Alevis in Turkey: The Emergence of a Secular Islamic Tradition,
London: Routledge.
United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (2005) Annual Report of the
United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Washington, DC; available
online at http://www.uscirf.gov/countries/publications/currentreport/2005annualRpt.pdf.
United States Department of State (2005a) “Turkey: International Religious Freedom Report
2005,” available online at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51586.htm.
—— (2005b) “Pakistan: International Religious Freedom Report 2005,” available online at
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51621.htm.
—— (2005c) “Iran: International Religious Freedom Report 2005,” available online at http://
www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51599.htm
Yousif, A. (2000) “Islam, Minorities and Religious Freedom: A Challenge to Modern Theory of
Pluralism,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 20: 29–43.
Zeidan, D. (1999) “The Alevi of Anatolia,” Middle East Review of International Affairs 3 (4);
available online at http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/1999/issue4/zeidan.pdf.
Zisser, E. (1999) “The Alawis, Lords of Syria: From Ethnic Minority to Ruling Sect,” in O.
Bengio, G. Ben-Dor, eds., Minorities and the State in the Arab World, Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner Publishers, 129–48.

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INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON
CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS
Adopted and opened for signature, ratification
and accession by General Assembly resolution
2200A (XXI) of 16 December 1966
entry into force 23 March 1976, in accordance
with Article 49

Article 4
1 In time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation and the
existence of which is officially proclaimed, the States Parties to the present
Covenant may take measures derogating from their obligations under the pres-
ent Covenant to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation,
provided that such measures are not inconsistent with their other obligations
under international law and do not involve discrimination solely on the ground
of race, colour, sex, language, religion or social origin.
2 No derogation from articles 6, 7, 8 (paragraphs 1 and 2), 11, 15, 16 and 18
may be made under this provision.
3 Any State Party to the present Covenant availing itself of the right of deroga-
tion shall immediately inform the other States Parties to the present Covenant,
through the intermediary of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, of the
provisions from which it has derogated and of the reasons by which it was
actuated. A further communication shall be made, through the same intermedi-
ary, on the date on which it terminates such derogation.

Article 18
1 Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his
choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in
public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, prac-
tice and teaching.
2 No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have
or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.
3 Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such
limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety,
order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.
4 The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the
liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious
and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.

––– R E L I G I O U S M I N O R I T Y R I G H T S –––

Article 26
All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination
to the equal protection of the law. In this respect, the law shall prohibit any
discrimination and guarantee to all persons equal and effective protection against
discrimination on any ground such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, polit-
ical or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Article 27
In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons
belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the
other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise
their own religion, or to use their own language.
Source: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_ccpr.htm
-- Religious Minority Rights (Used by permission of the curator)